Family farmers: Living on the edge

The year 2009 was a particularly challenging one for independent farmers like Teri Rosendahl. With the global financial crisis in full swing, small family farms were hit hard, and Rosendahl and her husband, Peter, were forced to mortgage a lot of the equipment they used at Udder Valley Dairy in rural Spring Grove, Minnesota just to get by. But from small daily struggles to major financial obstacles, challenges had simply become a way of life on the small, family-owned dairy farm.

How does our food system affect what we eat?

“We’ve gotten away from the real meaning of food, and the power of food,” Michael Pollan told us in a December 2013 interview. The famous food author has helped spur a movement encouraging people to return to using whole, real ingredients in home-cooked meals. He is known for touting a primary rule about food and eating: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

This famous food author insists there’s much to be gained from sitting around the table and sharing a home-cooked meal.

How will climate change affect the next generation?

So-called “cheap” energy sources will have a high cost for future generations.

We have been told that we live in a threshold age of energy production, an era when industrialized nations are poised to migrate from the combustion of fossil fuels to a solar- and wind-powered, renewable energy future. That has been the political assurance of the Obama administration and the appealing scenarios served up by energy futurists, even from the marketing departments of the large oil and gas corporations which today call the tune on energy policy.

Let it rain: Marymount University puts an eco-friendly spin on gardening

Students at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia worked together to construct a rain garden outside of their library. The idea took root to help reduce pollution levels in water runoff and to improve water quality on campus. Learn more in this short film about the benefits—both environmental and educational—of their unique garden.

What the earth needs now is an ethic of life

Care for all human life begins with protecting our planet.

John E. (Jay) Phelan is a senior professor of theological studies at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, where he has served for more than 20 years—14 of them as president and dean of the seminary.